1. Field of the Invention
Aspects of the present invention relate to an image forming apparatus having a remaining toner removing part and a method of removing remaining toner, and more particularly, to an image forming apparatus having a remaining toner removing part and a method to remove remaining toner which efficiently remove toner remaining on a belt.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, an image forming apparatus of an electrophotographic type forms an image on a printing medium through a series of processes. These processes include charging the printing medium and other components, exposing an electrostatic latent image on a photosensitive medium, developing the image on the photosensitive medium, transferring the image to the printing medium, and fixing the image to the printing medium. Furthermore, a variety of electrophotographic type image forming apparatuses are currently on the market including, for example, a laser printer, a scanner, a copier, a multi function device, etc.
As shown in FIG. 1, a conventional image forming apparatus 1 of an electrophotographic type includes a plurality of development cartridges 40Y, 40M, 40C, and 40K to respectively store yellow (Y) toner, magenta (M) toner, cyan (C) toner and black (K) toner, and a plurality of transfer rollers 50Y, 50M, 50C, and 50K disposed adjacent to a corresponding plurality of photosensitive media 45Y, 45M, 45C, and 45K. A printing medium transfer belt 31 is interposed between the plurality of development cartridges 40Y, 40M, 40C, and 40K and the corresponding plurality of transfer rollers 50Y, 50M, 50C, and 50K. A belt unit 30 includes the printing medium transfer belt 31 and a plurality of support rollers 32, 33, 35 and 36 which rotatably support the printing medium transfer belt 31.
Printing media P, such as sheets of paper, transparency sheets, etc., are stacked in a knock up plate 13. An individual printing medium P is picked up from the stack by a pick up roller 15 and transferred to the printing medium transfer belt 31 by a transport roller 21 to pass between the photosensitive media 45Y, 45M, 45C and 45K and the corresponding transfer rollers 50Y, 50M, 50C and 50K. When the printing medium P passes between the photosensitive media 45Y, 45M, 45C and 45K and the corresponding transfer rollers 50Y, 50M, 50C, and 50K, a yellow toner image, a magenta toner image, a cyan toner image and a black toner image are respectively transferred from the photosensitive media 45Y, 45M, 45C and 45K and overlapped onto the printing medium P by an electric attraction of each transfer roller 50Y, 50M, 50C and 50K.
When the toner is transferred to the printing medium P, some of the toner may be attached to the printing medium transfer belt 31 and remain on the printing medium transfer belt 31. To remove the remaining toner and clear the printing medium transfer belt 31, a blade 37a protrudes from a blade unit 37 which is connected to a frame of the image forming apparatus 1. The blade 37a is disposed in a position to contact the printing medium transfer belt 31 and scrape off the remaining toner.
However, in the above mechanical removing method, since the printing medium transfer belt 31 and the blade 37a constantly contact each other to enable the blade 37a to remove the remaining toner, the blade 37a wears down over time, deteriorating the quality of the belt cleaning.
Also, there is a conventional method of removing remaining toner from the printing medium transfer belt 31 using electricity, in which a separate toner charging device (not shown) is used to charge the toner remaining on the printing medium transfer belt 31 to have a polarity opposite to an original polarity, and thereby collect the remaining toner. However, in the conventional electric cleaning method, a separate charging device (not shown) and a control device (not shown) to control the charging device are used. Employing the separate charging device (not shown) and the control device (not shown) increases the cost of cleaning the printing medium transfer belt 31 and prevents an efficient use of space.